In cold weather climates, it is a frequent desire of persons exposed to frigid temperatures to have some form of face and neck protection when outdoors. One of the most common garments used to offer such protection is the traditional scarf, which can be tied in place about the person's neck and can then be adjusted over the face as desired by the wearer. Scarves suffer from a variety of drawbacks such as being difficult for children to tie as well as the potential for coming untied, thus eliminating their protection during use.
In light of the deficiencies of scarves, dickeys have been developed for use in cold weather situations. The traditional dickey is a tubular garment designed to fit over the wearer's head and reside around the wearer's neck. With the dickey's tubular design, no tying is required and the dickey cannot be removed except by the wearer deliberately sliding the dickey over their head. The dickey typically has a width allowing it to be rolled or “scrunched” up so that it resides only on the neck area, or alternatively, the dickey can be stretched to cover the face area below the eyes in addition to the neck area.
While dickeys overcome many of the disadvantages associated with the traditional scarves, dickeys do not provide additional benefits such as head coverage, jacket collar coverage or seamless transitions between the head and torso that hunting enthusiasts find beneficial in pursuing their sport.
Due to these concerns, a number of dickey designs incorporating head protection means, have been suggested. Examples of such designs include U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,686,258 to Schlesinger; U.S. Pat. No. 4,180,868 to Snow; U.S. Pat. No. 4,641,380 to Epstein; U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,996 to Kirby; U.S. Pat. No. 5,115,517 to Ferguson et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,230 to Sivret et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,800 to Anderson; U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,838 to Sontag; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,206 to MacDonald et al.; all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,800 to Anderson describes a multi-functional hat where the hat has a tubular fabric body. The hat portion of the multi-functional hat takes on the form of a hood with a face opening in the front of the head covering.
A number of the above-identified patents also include a hood structure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,115,517 to Ferguson et al. describes a scarf garment that is attached to the lower part of a hood shaped hat.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,686,258 to Schlesinger describes a stocking cap structure wherein a zipper along the band of the stocking cap is unzipped and the lower portion of the band extends under the chin, covering part of the neck. The chin and area under the chin may be covered by the band, but the neck area, in general, is not covered.
Although dickeys are known in the art, there is still a need for coverage additional to the dickey such as head coverage, jacket collar coverage or seamless transitions between the head and torso.